One of Earth’s “next-door neighbors,” Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, and like Earth, it’s about 4.6 billion years old. David imaged this with a DFK21AF-04 imager on a Celestron NexStar 11 GPS / 2-inch Televue 4X PowerMate on January 11, 2010. Image copyright 2010 David Wolf

February Skies
by Dennis Cochran

t’s 2010! The sky will be completely different this year! All the stars will. . . wait. No. They’ll be pretty much the same this year. Oh well.

What did we talk about in February 2009? The re-appearance of
Saturn. Guess what? Saturn is re-re-appearing again this February; up
at 10 P.M. at the beginning of the month, 8 P.M. at month’s end.
Should be good for March’s Open House—and the rings are back!
Jupiter has dropped out by now but Venus reclaims her place as the
big shiner of the early evening in the latter half of the month; keep
this in mind in the early hours of the Open House on Saturday the
20th. Then turn to the east to find Mars. He is showing strongly, too,
having just been passed by the Earth on her inside track around the
Sun.

This one-two planetary punch, plus the good old moon, should provide us with a nice set of easy thrillers for the public. In January, we mentioned Mars passing Praesepe early in February, so throw the Beehive Cluster, M44, into the mix for the public; it’s just south of Mars. Don’t forget to tell them that this bunch of sibling stars, 520 light-years away, has three names, just as the Pleiades has four. In fact, don’t forget the Pleiades—the Seven Sisters—Subaru —M45, way to the west, as a public object, especially if you have binoculars.

Coming down from Mars to see M44, you’re just northwest of the δ (delta) star of Cancer, the one in the middle of Cancer’s sloppy Y shape, where the three arms meet. Down at the end of the southeast arm, west of the alpha star, is the cluster M67. Back at the δ (delta) star, trace the northern arm up to ί (iota) Cancri at
the end and keep going half the Delta-Iota distance farther to find NGC 2683, which is actually in Lynx, west of its reddish α (alpha) star. NGC 2683 is a nearly edge-on spiral galaxy. If you then go east to α (alpha) Lynx and a very short ways farther, you’ll find a barred spiral, NGC 2859. Another spiral, NGC 2903, to the right of the top of Leo’s mane, could be found by dropping from α (alpha) Lynx down nearly to the level of M44 and drifting west a bit.

Moonstuff, all gleaned from the February 2010 issue of Astronomy, Page 53, says to turn on a white light behind you to keep your eyes from night-adapting. This is an at-home lunar filter, if you will.
Later you can turn the light off, sit down and sip from your water bottle as your eyes dark-adapt, and then go deep. But first look for the two well-defined same-size craters mention on Page 45, Atlas and Hercules, placed next to each other so that they can forever contest who is the strongest.

Number Two of “Bad Things That Can Happen to You While Observing:” Snakes. There are three kinds in Colorado: poisonous, venomous and non-the other two. If you feel something coiling around your ankle in the dark it’s probably a snake (or an ankle-biting weasel). They’re all hard to see at night as they stalk you. When (I mean, if) you are bitten by a snake, calmly put your telescope back in the car and go to an ER or after-hours clinic. Or leave it behind and let a friend drive you to the doctor, allowing another friend to fetch the scope for you.

If you survive the snakes on the 20th or whenever you are observing out in the Night-Hell of Nature, you can go to the DAS General Meeting on Friday the 26th. You may even get your fifteen minutes of fame as they announce your snake adventure!

- Dennis Cochran

SOME NOTABLE CELESTIAL OBJECTS THIS MONTH

Description RA DEC Constellation M31 Andromeda Galaxy (with M32; M110) 0h 42.7m 41° 16' Andromeda NGC 253 Sculptor or Silver Dollar Galaxy 0h 47.6m -25° 17' Sculptor NGC 891 Outer Limits Galaxy (Faint) 2h 22.6m 42° 21' Andromeda NGC 7331 Deer Lick Galaxy 22h 37.1m 34° 25' Pegasus NGC 457 ET or Owl Open Cluster 1h 19.1m 58° 20' Cassiopeia M33 Pinwheel Galaxy 1h 33.9m 30° 39' Triangulum M77 Seyfert (Active Nucleus) Galaxy 2h 42.7m -0° 01' Cetus M76 Little Dumbbell Planetary Nebula 1h 42.4m 51° 34' Perseus NGC 869/884 Double Cluster  2h 21.0m 57° 08' Perseus  M45 The Pleiades & Reflection Nebula  3h 47.0m 24° 07' Taurus  M37 Finest Auriga Open Cluster  5h 52.4m 32° 33' Auriga  M42/43 Great Nebula in Orion  5h 35.4m -5° 27' Orion  NGC 2392 - Eskimo Plantary Nebula 7h 29.2m 20° 55' Gemini NGC 2683 - Edge-on Spiral Galaxy 8h 52.7m 33° 25' Lynx NGC 2841 - Spiral Galaxy 9h 22.0m 50° 58' Ursa Major NGC 2903 - Spiral Galaxy 9h 32.2m 21° 30' Leo

References: Observers Handbook 2010, Sky & Telescope and Astronomy magazines

Comets and Other Special Celestial Events

See Jim Holder's article in the February 2007 Observer for more information about locating comets.